Wicked Wanderings
Delve into the enigmatic realms of the mysterious, unearth tales of haunting encounters, explore the chilling depths of true crime, and unravel the threads of the unexplained. Join us on the Wicked Wanderings Podcast for a riveting journey through the realms of the unknown and the haunting mysteries that linger in the shadows.
Wicked Wanderings
Ep. 82: Maura Murray UPDATE
We revisit the mysterious disappearance of Maura Murray, diving into new evidence and examining the strange circumstances surrounding her vanishing after a car crash in rural New Hampshire in 2004.
• Maura Murray disappeared after crashing her car on Wild Ammonusic Road in Haverhill, New Hampshire on February 9, 2004
• Before her disappearance, Maura had been involved in several incidents including shoplifting at West Point and credit card fraud at UMass
• She had packed up her dorm room, emailed professors about a non-existent family death, and purchased alcohol before driving north
• Recent fingerprint evidence matches Stephen Baldwin (formerly Finkelstein), a West Point acquaintance now imprisoned for animal cruelty
• Baldwin changed his name months after Maura's disappearance, and his own mother has been missing since 2007
• Despite extensive searches, no trace of Maura has ever been found
• Multiple theories exist: suicide, abduction, voluntary disappearance, or foul play
If you have any information about Maura Murray's case, please contact us through our social media channels or text us directly. We appreciate all of our listeners, and we're interested in hearing your theories about what happened to Maura.
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Wicked Wanderings is hosted by Hannah & Courtney and it's produced by Rob Fitzpatrick. Music by Sascha Ende.
Wicked Wanderings is a Production of Studio 113
Why was Cinderella so bad at soccer? She only had one shoe. She kept running away from the ball.
Courtney:You know what the worst part about this is? It reminds me of a more inappropriate joke about Cinderella when she gets to the balls. Ooh, what did Cinderella say when she got to the balls? There's a little giggle, a little gig store okay, hi, I'm hannah and I'm courtney.
Hannah:Join us as we delve into true crime, paranormal encounters and all things spooky.
Courtney:Grab your flashlight and get ready to wander into the darkness with us.
Hannah:This is Wicked Wanderings.
Courtney:Hi Courtney, hey Hannah, how are you? It has been a day, but I am excited to be here with you. It's been a day. It's been the longest day, whew. You ever have one of those days where you just feel like, and what else? And what else? Ah, don't put that in the universe. I just feel like it's been one of those days. So I'm excited to be winding down. The day didn't turn out the way that I wanted it to, or had, you know, thought about it, but I always enjoy recording an episode with you, so I'm hoping that this will be the cherry on top of my day. I hope so too, because we need it guys.
Hannah:We need it.
Courtney:We've encountered it all, from jokesters to nails and tires and straight incompetence, but we're here.
Hannah:And like, probably the weirdest one of the weirdest things that happened to us today is the lady that sat us at the restaurant and she's like I just want to make sure you have extra room for when your boyfriends come and we're like, um, they're at home. It was like the weirdest comment, like why can't we be together?
Courtney:the way we sat down together and looked at each other and almost at the exact same time, we're like. I so badly wanted to say oh no, my girlfriend's right here, yeah and I will say she was an older woman.
Hannah:She was an older woman, but it's just so strange it was definitely an odd encounter of word diarrhea in public well, and never mind the fact that when we looked at her she's like two. We're like yes, right, so we didn't even say like no, we have more people coming I don't know, man, it was strange.
Courtney:Sometimes people just they just word diarrhea. That's the only word I have for that word come on.
Hannah:It is 2025, corny. We all know you have cases that just stick in your brain, right 100, like even if you do the research, you do an episode on them, it just never leaves your brain lynn burdick, lynn burdick.
Courtney:For me it's lynn burdick. It's always lynn burdick. It will always, be forever and ever. Amen, lynn burdick I have two.
Hannah:I have danny croto, understandable, which I've been thinking about him a lot, because April, april, yeah, and also it's strange with the Pope dying. It reminds me also because I think it's the Catholic connection.
Courtney:That connection was made in my brain too, where?
Hannah:I saw it and I was like Danny.
Hannah:Yeah, but the other one is Maura Murray. Maura Murray, as anyone who knows me or listens to the podcast, I'm going to do something a little different today. I am revisiting the case, I am revisiting my notes, I am going to maybe get a fresh perspective on it. Courtney, it was not a part of that one. That was my other co-host, jess. So we're just gonna, we're gonna try this out, we're gonna go through this. Maybe we'll get I I don't know a different theory, or maybe there's some more information that we just haven't seen yet, because, of course, I know, on her date of missing, the family usually comes out with, hopefully, some new information, or they just get news coverage of it so we'll see.
Courtney:And her date was in february, correct february. Okay, yep, I'm excited I'm. It's a really new chapter for me too, because my experience with Wicked Wanderings at this point was just that of a supportive friend. So I'm really excited because Maura Murray was episode number one. Episode number one, episode number one of Wicked Wanderings started with Maura Murray, and I just couldn't be excited enough to be part of it again.
Courtney:And and honestly, I just feel like it needs to be redone. Why not? It's been over almost two years. Yeah, there's definitely news articles. I've definitely scrolled beyond them, and so I'm excited to kind of get people maybe who aren't familiar with her case. I'm excited for people who didn't hear the first episode to hear it for maybe the first time, or maybe for people who need a refresher to hear it. Uh, again, yeah, exactly, so let's get started, shall we?
Hannah:Let's break it up. Let's dive into Maura Murray. February 9th 2004,. Maura Murray made her way up to Haverhill, new Hampshire, from UMass and crashed her car along a country road. She was last seen by a few neighboring houses, but when the police arrived she was gone. There are many conspiracy theories surrounding the disappearance, but nothing can be verified until Maura is found alive or dead. Let's go into some background information on Moira. So Moira was born on May 4th 1982, which she was a fellow Taurus, which just speaks to my soul, both of our souls right being Taurus babies. She was the fourth of five siblings Shortly after Kurt was born, which was one of her brothers, fred and Lori Mara's parents separated, which I think both of us can relate to yeah, absolutely.
Hannah:According to James Renner's book which, sorry, was not a fan of at all Fred was not Kurt's father. No one knows what happened, but it just seems to probably give a little background to what the Moore family was going through.
Courtney:Okay, so there was some like any family, there was some secrets, there was some juice and tea. Okay.
Hannah:Exactly, Maura was a very athletic person and she also excelled in school. She got a 1420 on her SAT, which is insanely high. I just remember having to go through SATs and my mom was like you can do better in math. You can do better in math, just taking it over and over again.
Courtney:The SAT prep is something that I do not ever wish to go back to.
Hannah:Honestly, I probably would rather take the boards over again.
Courtney:I don't know about that either. Every time my license renewal or my board certification renewal comes on, I'm like definitely get that one done, because we are not going to pass the boards exam the first time again.
Hannah:After high school, perter's sister, julie, went to West Point and she studied chemical engineering. She was there for a few semesters until some incidences occurred and she transferred to UMass for nursing. On February 9th 2004, morrow left UMass and drove up to New Hampshire where a car crashed along the curve of Wild Ammonusic Road in Haverhill, new Hampshire. I want to talk about the crash first, and that's how I had my notes from last time, and I think it'll kind of give us a good investigative approach to this.
Courtney:I like it Lay out all the information for me.
Hannah:Okay, so the crash happened at approximately 7.27 pm on February 9, 2004, in her 1996 Saturn. At this time it's February, so when you imagine a back road in February In New Hampshire, in New Hampshire, You're thinking snowy, snowy, or at least snow on the road, or at least snow on the side.
Hannah:It's a windy back road, I'm sure there wasn't a lot of lighting and it has been said she was drinking due to the alcohol found in her car and there were some empty bottles. So if you're picturing her on this windy, dark road with snow and she's also likely drinking it's probably not the best circumstances, right.
Courtney:And I have such a hard time with them like this, where they're like, okay, there's a presence of alcohol in the car, which is less troubling to me when they say, oh, there was a bottle of alcohol in the car that was unopened, so they must have been drinking. And it's like, well, wait a second, if the bottle was there, then they weren't drinking. And again, unless there's found alive or there's a body, they're just not going to know that information and a talk screen by this point would be null and void exactly, and they'll never know like thinking about college kids, and I've gone into cars before where people have left empty beer cans yeah, and they're not intoxicated.
Hannah:It's like left from the night before. I'm not saying you should do it, I'm not saying that, but condoning it. She's a college kid. Like it could have been that she had a couple brewskis in the car with a friend one day and they just threw them in the backseat Right.
Courtney:Like it didn't mean she was drinking or they were out in the woods drinking and they didn't want to litter, I mean I had a friend in grad school who carried around tequila in her trunk because she had a very particular kind of tequila she liked. So when she would come over she didn't drink it while she was driving, right, but she would come inside. I think of a thousand reasons why there would be the presence of bottles of alcohol yes, or alcohol, and not have the person driving be intoxicated.
Hannah:Right, so we need to give her a little leeway, especially since we don't know what happened.
Courtney:Credit where credit is due.
Hannah:And I also think that if you were drinking like that, you would smell it in the car.
Courtney:Yeah, and I don't remember ever reading anywhere Spilling it, or yeah.
Hannah:I don't remember reading anywhere where they said oh, we smell it, because even if you're drinking a can of beer or any type of alcohol, you never get to the last drop. So if you throw a can it gets spilt or whatever. You're going to smell it in the car. So I don't remember ever reading that somewhere in police reports or whatever.
Courtney:The only other thing I could think of is when people return their cans and bottles and they rinse them out in the sink and then they put them in a bag Easily. I'm sure I mean my dad and I used to do this when I was a kid. I'm sure there were times where he threw them into the bed of his truck and then a couple days later he found a rogue beer can or soda can rolling around in the back. Yeah, rinsed out so there wouldn't be any, you know, substance left in it. I feel like you hear a young college girl and somebody says oh, there was alcohol involved and people suddenly have that like oh well, she deserved it, she asked for it. It's like wearing a skirt and being raped, kind of thing.
Hannah:Yep, yeah, of course there's no cell service. And then, you know, this time in the early 2000s, cell phones weren't that great anyways, and not everybody had one. And not everyone had one. Based on where her car was found, she was going along the curve and then somehow I don't know if it was ice, I don't know if there was an animal that got in the way she started falling asleep. It could be a multitude of things. But she spun her car so it was facing the wrong way in the right-hand lane.
Courtney:And I'm assuming they had like marks in the snow or marks on the road to prove that she had been spun around.
Hannah:Yes, I haven't researched, obviously, this case in a while, but there were neighbors that saw things. I don't know if it was the marks in the snow, I don't know if it was the way her wheels were Something. They just knew that she had spun it.
Courtney:They had something to believe that.
Hannah:Right Now let's talk about before the crash. There's a lot of things that happened before the crash. In order to try to understand where Maura was mentally, emotionally and even physically, we need to look at the days prior to the disappearance. Fred Maura's dad was a hard ass. My dad wasn't really around for me to understand having a hard ass father, but he just seemed to push his kids to be the best. He wanted them to be the best athletes, the best students, and I can understand that that might get to be a lot when you want to be this perfectionist in everything that you do.
Courtney:It's a lot of pressure and, I think, on kids too. People want to appease the people who are important to them and I can definitely relate to that. My dad was at times a hard ass, but also he just was very motivating and he had a military background himself which also added a certain layer of expectations and just a lot of expectations for me as a child, which I can relate. It does become a lot and I think it gives some of us adults a complex, honestly, but that's not the point of this.
Hannah:That's a different episode. Julie, which was one of her sisters, did say in an interview that they never wanted to disappoint their dad. When Julie Amora got accepted to West Point, it was a proud moment for many people, and while at West Point she met her boyfriend, bill. She was studying chemical engineering and that's why it is interesting to hear what she did next. This always baffled me. I never understood like what was going through her head at the time she stole from Fort Knox.
Courtney:Interesting why.
Hannah:I don't know what would possess you to do it. I always wanted to know the why.
Courtney:Attention seeking is all I can come up with.
Hannah:Yeah, I guess. So it just you know, of course she was caught. It's Fort Knox. People Like you're not not going to get caught. This isn't the CVS on the corner right, and even there with the amount of cameras you're getting caught Right. And they even asked her like why did you steal it? And she goes I don't know. I had the money and they're weird things. That she stole too. It was a lipstick and nail polish, and she didn't even strike me from everything I've read about her as the kind ofish.
Courtney:But she just was this athletic persona that just had really good skin and she didn't need to wear makeup, and she was young too, and she was young, I mean, I feel like you don't need all those beauty products when you're young.
Hannah:There was a documentary that I watched and it was titled the Disappearance of Maura Murray and it was Maggie Fralin, who was also a UMass grad, and she just became so involved with the Maura Murray case. When Maggie interviewed Kathleen, which is Maura's other sister, she said that everyone wanted the incident to be very hush-hush. I'm sure that was very embarrassing for the family After an incident like that. They wanted that transition to UMass to be easy, simple, don't ask too many questions. Oh, maura's just at UMass now. You know we just had to make this change due to whatever, as long as it wasn't said that she stole and it also is a pretty big flip too that I never really thought much about until today.
Courtney:Chemical engineering to nursing is not at all the same.
Courtney:So you could almost even make an argument to say she was here, she was at West Point, she was doing chemical engineering and she had her found her calling, she had decided she wanted to do something else. It makes me wonder if there wasn't something else going on. Yep, because we know how families tend to hide mental illness and things and obviously I thought mania immediately. To be honest with you, someone who's impulsive and they're stealing things is often a first sign of mania. Stealing things, inflated ego, things out of of the norm, the way you're reacting.
Hannah:I've certainly known people who have been bipolar in my life who've gone into manic episodes and stealing was one of the first things they did and it was always one of the theories that people thought was like oh, she just ran into the woods and so if she was in the type of mania, was she just so confused that she just ran and got?
Courtney:lost. Think about, like like my experiences, not personally with mania, but with other people that I know who are manic, and I think it sounds a lot simpler than it is right yeah, oh, she ran off into the woods Sounds very unpractical. I mean, from stories I have heard of people they might say, oh my God, there's this person in here who needs my help, or there's this person I'm running from in here who needs my help, or there's this person I'm running from, and they have themselves fully convinced that they need to go do that. But wouldn't they have found the body?
Courtney:that's always what I come back to in february, unprepared, mentally ill, and in that theory we're working. I just don't think that you would have been physically fit to withstand even the night depending on the temperatures in new hampshire wild animals, other people. There's certainly just a lot of things that I would question about that theory very true, very true so she goes to umass.
Hannah:And she did not stop getting into trouble. According to the missing mora murray podcast, she got accused of stealing credit card information, and this was in november of 2003.
Courtney:So, fairly shortly before the crash.
Hannah:Yeah, so you're talking three months, three-ish months before and the thing is again, she's not using it to buy big things. She was like ordering pizza. It wasn't to buy a new computer, I don't know like just steal it to do it almost yeah yeah, just these little things, like the thrill of doing it so, according to renner's book, a umass student contacted amherst police and said there were charges on her car that she did not make.
Hannah:And when the police called the restaurant they said the deliveries were made to Kennedy Hall, which is where she was staying, which was her dorm room. I wonder who lived at Kennedy Hall Like? Later on that night, one of the restaurants called the police and said something oh, they placed an order with a credit card number, just to give you guys a heads up. So the police told him to go through with the order. You would meet them at the drop-off. And, of course, who came out of the building was moira. There's actually a picture of her that the police took in front of kennedy hall to prove that.
Courtney:To prove yeah, it's just strange. Do we know what ever came from that? Like? Was she ever charged with anything?
Hannah:yeah, more story to the police was that she found the receipt on the ground with the credit card number on it, which is 2004, but I don't ever remember my phone credit card number being on anything.
Courtney:I don't know if they ever did that. Yeah, correct us if we're wrong, wanderers or rob from the future rob from the future.
Hannah:The police asked for the paper with the information on it and more gave it to them but also had other number sequences on them, but she claimed they were friends phone numbers. So when she talked to the police she's not saying much of why she did what she did. Maybe she was embarrassed, but she got probably the best outcome she could get because she goes before a judge. The judge cuts her some slack and says stay out of trouble for six months and it gets off your record so basically her story was how did you get the credit card number?
Courtney:I found it on a slip of paper on the ground, correct, but to me that misses the whole point of like okay, yeah, that's how you got the number but were you looking? For the receipt, because I pass a lot of receipts on the ground. I'm sure and I've never once thought let me pick this up there's an intent piece that's missing from absolutely yeah yeah.
Hannah:Then she crashes her dad's car into a guardrail that's not staying out of trouble for six months. On the way back from a party Drinking yeah, on February 7, 2004, which was a Saturday, she went car shopping with her dad to get her a new car. And they didn't purchase one, but they met up with one of Moira's friends to have dinner and then after dinner they go to the liquor store so that Moira and her friend could pick up booze at the party that night. And it gets better more than drops off her father at his hotel and borrows his new car to drive to the party. New car around three in the morning she said she had to return her dad's car, which so many things are in question here, like why do you have to give your car back to your dad at three in the morning while you?
Courtney:were drinking, and also, if he's in a hotel room, it's not like she's returning home. Hi, I'm gonna leave the keys here for you, so when you wake up in the morning, you have them right. Are you gonna like, knock, knock, dad, here's your car back. Bring me back to my dorm room. Yeah, it doesn't make sense.
Hannah:On her way to the motel she crashes into the guardrail. To paint an image for you, she got a point of the row where she had to turn left or right. It was just a guardrail in front right. You can't go straight. She did and she did. She went straight again. She got no charges that night.
Courtney:I don't know how, but she did it right so she's like a stroke of good luck, I guess, or maybe bad luck, because if she had been in trouble, maybe she wouldn't have been in the situation yeah, from the podcast.
Hannah:I listened to what preceded the crash. For a good part of their episode that they did. They talked about like many possibilities of what probably could have happened and I cannot comfortably present any of the following as fact, but here is what maybe happened. Okay, mora arrived with the tow truck at the hotel and somehow she got into her father's room. I don't know if she had.
Courtney:Maybe she had the spare key. That was part of their plan. You're gonna come in here. Maybe there's two beds and that's not totally out the realm. But isn't that weird if you already have a dorm room to go back to? It is. But if the story about her needing to drop the car off to her father is true, I can see where, like if that was my situation, my dad's letting me borrow the car. I could see him saying here's the second key to my room. There's two beds in here. When you're done, come back in, I'll bring you back to school in the morning. I I could perfectly see that. Maybe not super far-fetched, I mean, it's not a great theory.
Hannah:It wouldn't be like top tier but fred claims that he didn't know she was there until morning. So whether more got the attendant letter in or obviously she had an extra key, we no one knows. Right the podcasters could speak to the phone records, which are interesting. There was a call made to her boyfriend, billy, from Fred's phone at 4.49 am. For Billy that is early because remember he was at the military. And he was stationed in Oklahoma.
Courtney:Okay.
Hannah:Did Maura borrow her dad's phone? Where was her phone? Or did Fred make the call Right? According to the podcast, again two days later and we're now looking at the beginning of the day of the crash, phone calls were being made. Maura supposedly called Bartlett, new Hampshire, to rent a condo, and the phone call lasted about three minutes, but no condo was ever rented. Later on that day she emails her boyfriend and in this email talks about how she does not want to talk to anyone. But she signs it love you, stud, which maybe that's just the banter they had. But she sends an email, not a phone call, an email, and I'm pretty sure we had text messaging back then, but it probably cost money right right 1 13 pm, she leaves a message on a classmate's phone, then after that calls 1-800-GO-STOW.
Hannah:That's S-T-O-W-E, which is a place in New Hampshire. For you people that don't know, it's a ski resort, correct, yes? Where the phone call lasts about five minutes, but it was pre-recorded informational. She must have listened to because, according to Stowe, phone lines were down An hour and 20 minutes after she emailed her boyfriend. She called him and they either spoke for a minute or she left a voicemail, but it wasn't long enough for a full conversation.
Hannah:You can't tell yeah, around 4 pm Moore emails her professors and says there was a death in the family and Scherz said something along the lines of I will be off for a couple days, but there was no death in the family. She obviously was trying to get a couple days off. Right Before she left for New Hampshire she packed stuff in boxes in her dorm and took her pictures off the wall.
Courtney:That's weird.
Hannah:I also found that she sent in her homework really early that morning To me.
Courtney:she still cared about her grades. She cared about her grades. She wasn't going away permanently.
Hannah:Right. She was saying like, oh, I have a couple days off, I need to make sure I get my assignments in. Obviously, moyer was going through a lot. We can only speculate what was going on in her head, but there was something going on.
Hannah:What was interesting from both Maggie, who did the documentary, and Renner's book that I read, was that they both retraced her steps from that day, which, if you actually watch the documentary, it's quite amazing to watch her retrace the steps, because they made sure they left at the time that she did made all the stops that she did to get up there to see where's the gaps. Right, they both found about Sorry, what'd you say? Good strategy. They both found about an hour discrepancy in time from when she left UMass, ran a couple errands and then headed to New Hampshire where she eventually crashed and went missing.
Hannah:And, according to the documentary, after she left UMass, maura stopped at the bank, then the liquor store and drove to New Hampshire, and the bank then the liquor store and drove to new hampshire. And again, there's actual videos of her. You can see her stopping at the bank. Well, the bank was actually one of those banks in a parking lot. Okay, you know where, it's just an atm. She then headed to the liquor store, where she bought a box of red wine, bailey's and a 12 pack of wine coolers.
Courtney:It doesn't sound like you're buying alcohol for one person. Yes and no, the wine coolers in the wine, but bailey's is very different bailey's is weird. I'll admit bailey's, unless you're buying guinness with it, or but she's potentially going to a ski resort, because she called stowe for the information. So to me I'm like, okay, she's going to stowe, maybe she's gonna have hot chocolate, she's gonna spike it with bailey's. Maybe it doesn't seem far-fetched for what she's doing. It just seems like a lot for one person. It does.
Hannah:Yeah, I guess I'm just trying to think of, like, when I'm going on vacation and we stop. Before we get to Maine, we stop at the New Hampshire liquor because, it's cheap and we stock up for a couple days.
Hannah:But that's also two people, so I don't know. It's different alcohols? Yes, true. Different alcohols yes, true. That's my point. Now we're looking after the crash. Maura crashes the car and on this road it curves to the left. Her car was found facing the wrong way. Like I was saying. Right, we have eyewitnesses the Westmans, the Marotes and Atwoods. The crash happened around 7.27 pm, because that is the time of the first 911 call that was made by faith westman at 7, 30.
Courtney:This guy has always creeped me out, and even now.
Hannah:Look at butch atwood that bus driver man, sorry but still think I mean. Unfortunately he's dead now, but I just feel like he knew something off. Yeah, I agree so he's driving home in his bus and notices mara Butch speaks to her and sees that she's shaken up. Moira refuses help, claiming that she called AAA, which she knew was not true because there is no signal, which is also creepy in a way.
Courtney:Yeah, what did he think about that? It's like almost as if he was seeing an opportunity, like, oh, you called AAA Right.
Hannah:But it feels very horror movie-esque. It does, but AAA doesn call triple a right, but it feels very.
Courtney:Horror movie, yes, but triple a doesn't have service here it does. Or like, hey, I cut the phone lines for the house and you're telling me you already called 9-1-1 right right feels like very one step ahead of the victim, kind of thing. Yes, yeah, I agree.
Hannah:About two to three minutes later he leaves mara and drives the rest of the way home.
Courtney:Butch also had changed his statements a couple times always sus when you change your statement a few times.
Hannah:740 butch or his wife. One of them calls 911, but the lines are busy.
Courtney:How does the yeah, I know, I've never once heard of trying to call 911 and the line is busy.
Hannah:Yep, so I've called 911 and I've had it where they've pushed me to like a different town.
Courtney:You go to the state police usually, yeah and usually dispatches from springfield to mass state police. I've never been like beep, beep, beep. Sorry, no help is available. Try again tomorrow. So he does his paperwork in the bus and waits. Yeah, apparently.
Hannah:That's not morbid. 7.43,. The dispatcher calls back and gets Butch's wife and says she does not know where Moira is. Okay, so obviously either she's already gone at this point or she hasn't looked out her window. 7.46 pm, sergeant Cecil Smith arrives and Maura is gone. By that point, when the police went through her car, several of the wine coolers were empty or missing and there was red wine all over the car. But that could be also be from the crash, not her drinking, right? Yeah, exactly. So from the documentary they were able to see that Maura's car car, since it was still in a car lot. They saw a savage hop card. Airbags were deployed. They could see the dust from fingerprinting that they had died. It was shaken up. Yeah, maggie did get her hand with maggie's a documenter, did get her hands on an official police list of items, found her car and some things were interesting. So we have shampoo, okay, sleeping pills. Obviously she's having some college that, but she also she's having mental health issues and she can't sleep.
Hannah:Turn your mind off like we know if they're prescription sleeping pills or if they were like the over-the-counter honestly, if I'm thinking back to the documentary, they were kind of common, like how like birth control would come like, just pop one out, I don't know, like a pill, like a pill pack yeah, because I just know that like there are things you can even buy at, like the Dollar Tree, that are sleep aids, I don't know that I would trust Dollar Tree medication.
Courtney:I'm sure it's fine If you're a pharmacist, let us know about that, but I do feel like it's not abnormal for a college student to need sleep aid. Do I get concerned about sleep aid with alcohol? Yes, absolutely.
Hannah:Deodorant lotion, body spray. Okay. Razor makeup all yes absolutely deodorant lotion body spray. Okay, you're going away for the weekend that's normal birth control.
Courtney:Okay, if you take it, you're gonna keep it with you every day and candy and some school stuff.
Hannah:Like we said, this sounds like an override bag right for a girl who just wants to get away from life's bullshit right. 36 hours into the investigation, new hampshire fishing game were called in and did a 10 mile circle radius around the crash and they found no footprints or anything of interest. 10 days after the crash, the cadaver dogs called it.
Courtney:I don't know why it was 10 days later. Do they think 10 days was necessary? I don't know, but that seems like a long. You're down to the inside job or poor police work again. I hate this question.
Hannah:I really hate that it's what comes up all the time they tracked more ascent for a small way down the road and then lost it like she got into a car or something. Like she got into a car exactly what they thought. According to kurt mora's little brother, lori moro's mom could not help in the investigation due to having cancer. She has passed and she died on her daughter's birthday. Yeah, fred, her father did not sit down for a formal interview with police for almost five and a half years, which I don't know how I feel about that either.
Courtney:It kind of makes sense based off of his persona that we know about, though, too well, and also during that interview he made sure his attorney was with him yeah, I feel weird about that. I do. The attorney part makes me feel weird.
Hannah:The rest of it could just be him being rigid in my mind, but I do feel weird about the attorney part he obviously was going through something, because he did say that his daughter had been depressed and maybe went off the trail and died. That seems very specific, very specific wouldn't be.
Courtney:I mean also five and a half years. You probably lost hope that you're going to find her at that point too.
Hannah:Yeah, but this is a weird thing to say to the police, like you knew your daughter was depressed With your attorney present.
Courtney:Yeah, very strange. Makes you wonder what you would have said if the attorney wasn't present.
Hannah:Let's talk about some theories. I think we touched on some of these already. Maura was in tandem driving with someone and when the crash happened she hopped over to okay explain this for the short term, but not for the long term, exactly short term, and then of course, that's why there was so much alcohol, that was. But then if she would have taken it with you, right, you know?
Courtney:right, and anything that had her name on it and things.
Hannah:Assuming you weren't already intoxicated, you'd be like, oh, I need my overnight bag if we're gonna keep going, exactly yeah another one is after the crash, mara ran into the woods scared of a dui, which would be something else on her record, and ended up dying in the woods. But they would have found her. They would have found her Something.
Courtney:Some part of her. Whether it was clothing or footprints or something. Yeah, that one doesn't seem likely to me. There's also a theory about the police that has something to do with it. Like I said, poor police work or inside job.
Hannah:no-transcript. Yes, I don't know why it was in my notes, but tinny and rattling no-transcript.
Courtney:That could have caused an issue, because I know right now there's a thing going around shout out dad, where they're putting zip ties on people's rims so you can hear it and their goal is to get you out of the car. Because then you're vulnerable. You're not in the car, you probably car, you probably don't have your phone right. You bend over to get it. They're behind you, right. So it kind of makes me think about that too, in the documentary they actually had a garage.
Hannah:Get her type of model of car, put a rag in the exhaust okay with how fast she was going, like how long would stuff happen, and it ended up just like popping out I kind of want to like ask a mechanic friend right now like what would happen.
Courtney:Do we have any?
Hannah:I do, I'm gonna text him right now I might even ask two. I'll work on this while you keep going, okay another thing they were talking about was was it possible that she stopped in town, went to the diner or something? Someone saw her got interested.
Courtney:You know, it could have been something that, oh, the waitress is like, oh, you're alone, and it could have been like, yeah, I'm just going by myself up here for a few days, or whatever, and just was an opportune type thing, that's true there's so many possibilities so many I see why this one becomes your lynn burdick because there are just so many possibilities that, even though there's a lot of information for her, which is different from lynn, there's a lot of theory, there's a lot of do these things connect or not, but there isn't a lot of hard physical evidence.
Hannah:The other one is Maura got picked up by a stranger. Whether willingly or against her will, she got into the car.
Courtney:And, but there was never any sign of struggle. But if they didn't do really good investigative work for 10 days, work for 10 days, I mean come on right, because she was outside the car at one point. Right, if you wreck a car, you're gonna get out, you're gonna look at the damage.
Hannah:You're potentially in the dark because if you're going to get into a friend's car, wouldn't you grab your stuff, like you were saying absolutely absolutely I would need all my stuff, especially if we're having a good time.
Courtney:I'm gonna want the alcohol.
Hannah:Yeah, at least right exactly, and the last theory I have going unless, according to yours, you have one is that more committed suicide. An empty pack of sleeping pills was found with a full pack, which I think is weird that you would keep an empty one so one I I see where I have an issue with that.
Courtney:I feel like I'm debunking all of your things. No, it's fine. My issue with that is suicide means there's a body. Where's the body?
Hannah:well, that's why I'm did she just take a bunch and just walk off into the woods?
Courtney:And I know you're like.
Hannah:I mean she could have been in Butch's basement for all we know.
Courtney:honestly, and also what I will say about me in college and bags. I know for certain that I had this one go-to overnight bag that I never fully emptied out. There were probably pairs of socks in there that existed solely in that bag and never got worn. So for me, if I'm at your house I'm sleeping over, I empty my sleeping pills. If there's no trash can in the room, I'm going to stuff it back in my bag To me. I'm not satisfied that she took those pills just because it was empty. She could have, but I just I don't know. She didn't seem organized. She was definitely impulsive.
Courtney:I could have seen if somebody pulled over and said hey, you want to come here, we're going to have a good time. That seems more likely to me than that she committed suicide Truthfully, yeah.
Hannah:I hope there's some information. I mean, of course there's also theories that she ran off into Canada and she has a new identity and she just wanted to get away from everything. But then why turn in your homework?
Courtney:that's the part that really gets me, because you obviously cared about your success. Yeah, otherwise you would have just left and went missing. Yeah, she's either very good at disappearing and was coached by somebody. Like you have to make these calls, you have to be strategic. I don't know, I don't really know. Do we know if there's any new updates, since I can peruse yeah, peruse I did see that they recovered a fingerprint and that they were able to link it from our car. I don't remember where it said that it was from, but I do remember they were saying that they were able to link it and it was someone who was in jail for something else and the prints were a match. I do think it was inside of her car.
Hannah:Because you know, of course I mentioned that there was the fingerprint dusting that they had found from the police doing that.
Courtney:And allegedly if I'm thinking of the same person she knew the person. It was someone who she had gone to West Point with. From the article that I saw.
Hannah:And the guy's in prison.
Courtney:So the guy's name was Stephan Baldwin and he was the executive director of the Union County Humane Society in Ohio. He was sentenced for more than 15 years in prison after he was found guilty of 32 counts of animal cruelty, bribery, theft and various other charges that were not listed, which is interesting because obviously you're talking about somebody who was the director of a humane society. He was posing as this person who really cared about creatures he really loved pets but instead he was illegally euthanizing them and pocketing the proceeds for personal use.
Courtney:So he's a douche canoe. What's his name again? His name is stephan baldwin. He was arrested in august 2020 and his fingerprints were then entered into the national automated fingerprint identification system and shortly after, the new hampshire state police were alerted like hey, these fingerprints are in here and that they matched one of the fingerprints that was recovered from mora's car. And he was from west point. Yeah, yeah. So Baldwin and Maura attended the US Military Academy at West Point together in the early 2000s and allegedly they were acquaintances. Baldwin claimed when he talked to Renner the person who you were mentioning was doing the documentary that he and Maura were in a casual romantic relationship together while they were at West Point.
Hannah:Oh my God, he might be on the documentary.
Courtney:Yeah, Because they interviewed a couple different guys for that Maura and Baldwin also withdrew from West Point within weeks of one another, which is interesting to note. She withdrew from the West Point school in January of 2002, and he resigned December 21st 2001, according to the school records at West Point. Dude, what the fuck, fuck, so fast forward from? You know we were talking about when they were in school together. In 2024, the fbi visited him to kind of quiz him about his connections to maura, and this was four years after the fingerprints were matched from him to the car and he denied any involvement in the disappearance, claiming that he hadn't had contact with her since leaving West Point.
Hannah:I mean, I guess that's possible that his prints would be in the car if that was the same car she used from West Point.
Courtney:However, I phoned my friend about the tailpipe and having the rag in the exhaust and he said that he supposes it could potentially choke the exhaust gases, which would cause too much back pressure, depending on how big the cloth is in the exhaust and where within the exhaust it's located. Okay, so I asked him. I got a little bit more specific. I said would this cause the car performance to be so bad that it could stall or cause a potential car wreck, or would it just pop back out of the exhaust? Thinking about what the investigators?
Courtney:had said and I also told him that we're talking about a 90s saturn and he said it could potentially stall the car. If it's that jammed in the exhaust which could potentially slash, probably stall it out and cause a wreck, do with that what you must, but this is a mechanic who we trust with aircraft mechanics as well and has about 10 years of experience working with cars, which makes me wonder if somebody didn't set it up and then just follow her from a distance waiting for it to happen.
Hannah:Follow her. Now we're thinking like we have prints of some guy did he follow her?
Courtney:so yeah, so you're talking like did this guy follow? What's really striking me is this guy from west point. He withdrew in december of 2001 and she withdrew in january of 2002, so that kind of doesn't match our profile if he's following her, because in that point she followed him, if you're looking at that as a pattern.
Hannah:But I still don't understand no one leaves West Point and doesn't finish. I feel like that's like one in a chance circumstance.
Courtney:Not many people would do that Right Without, like, a medical reason. Well, we know her reason because she was freaking, stealing Allegedly, or is that a better reason than what it was now? I'm like, was she involved with this man? Were they trying to hide it?
Hannah:was there a pregnancy that was actually something that renner talked about in his book supposed pregnancies that she didn't want anyone know about, or her boyfriend, because it might not be his that's like.
Courtney:That's an easy one that they always go to for women. Yeah, she's pregnant and it's not his. So baldwin did not say anything about his involvement in the disappearance when the fbi went to him and asked about it.
Courtney:However, he did exchange some emails with renner and he did say, quoting here, and here I am quoting since spoke, I spent a little bit of time looking into the details around Maura's disappearance and trying to think of anything that might be even the slightest bit relevant. He went on to talk about that. He never really looked into her disappearance because he always just had that little twinge of disappointment and sadness about how his relationship with her ended. And he did claim to recall that a fifth-year student had been quote unquote following Maura during her final year at West Point. So it seems like a little bit of that blame game, like yeah, ok, I don't know anything. Oh, wait a minute.
Courtney:There was this fifth year student who was kind of following her around. Again here I am quoting. I wanted to say Chris was his name. I can't be positive about that, but I know there aren't many fifth-year seniors so hopefully it's not too hard to nail that individual down. He had been following Maura around a lot at school and I only know that because he burst into my room one night when Maura and I were together and I got a lot of demerits for sharing the same horizontal surface as a cadet of the opposite sex. When I asked Maura how this upperclassman knew she was in my room, she basically said that he had been stalking her but was pretty dismissive about the whole thing. I can't imagine she ever gave him the time of day and I don't know what happened to him. I'm not sure what his name was. I hope that our disciplinary records might show who turned us that night. So there's a lot.
Hannah:It feels like pointing the finger at somebody else and he's saying it's chris and he's saying I don't know the guy's name, what he was doing on right kind of it would make sense, I mean.
Courtney:But I will say the charges that stephan baldwin had were about animals and things like that. What do we know about people who have a history for violence is that they do typically start with with animals. Is it possible? Yes, am I convinced after reading this update of information, that I think that's what happened? I don't know, because baldwin did confirm to someone I think it was Renner that his fingerprints were found inside the car, meaning he's confirming that the FBI told him your prints were on the car. But he was claiming and staying pretty true to the fact that the FBI told him they were discovered on a CD or a CD case. He's saying oh, Maura and I exchange CDs frequently. You know when we were at West Point, but he denied ever having any contact with her when he left the school and when she left the school or ever visiting her at UMass. So it's kind of far-fetched that much time had gone by and it's important to also know that the police never confirmed where on Maura's car the prints were found.
Hannah:If you're getting arrested for animal cruelty and abuse, I have no qualms thinking that you don't stop there, that you just have a violent personality, yeah.
Courtney:It's also very weird because it sounds like he told others and I'm sorry, I'm not sure if it was Renner or somebody else that he didn't contact her after West Point. He didn't know she was missing until he saw it on TV. He never read about it online until he saw it on TV. He never read about it online. He never saw it anywhere else. And that is just kind of strange. Because you have this relationship in college, you're not at all interested in the fact that she disappeared.
Hannah:Yeah, you have a friend missing.
Courtney:You knew all of this information about a stalker 20 years ago, but you didn't share any of this with detectives. You're saying you didn't notice any of it. This article really just like. I feel like it was like wham bam as I'm going through it. They also mentioned that he changed his name months after she vanished, according to court records, so his legal name when she knew him was stephen finkelstein oh god, I would change the last name. And he changed the surname to his mom's maiden name in december of 2004. Not that he was asked or why, you know. I mean, he would probably lie anyways if it was something about that.
Hannah:He sounds like someone that needed a fresh start to me. Or is hiding something Because that's expensive to change your name. It's expensive.
Courtney:It is. And even more weird, apparently his mother, barbara Baldwin, who remember he took her maiden name, hasn't been seen or heard from since 2007. Stop, it's not clear if there was a missing persons report, but she was last seen in California.
Hannah:Wait, it's not sure if there's a missing person report.
Courtney:It's not sure if there was a missing persons report ever made, but apparently Baldwin, on his Facebook, had posted pictures before he was in jail about his mother's disappearance.
Hannah:Well, is that something that you can look?
Courtney:up? I would think so, and apparently when Runner interviewed Baldwin's dad he said quote nobody's heard from her as far as we know, she could be buried in the desert somewhere. Interestingly enough, again, we're talking about a pattern here. Two of Baldwin's ex-partners and lovers died in drug and alcohol-related tragedies One was of an overdose and the second was in a DUI car crash and so he's not been named an official suspect. At least not at the time of the article that I read, he was not listed as a formal suspect, and it seems like Renner is doing a lot of the legwork to say, hey, why are we not looking a little bit closer at this guy? You know he's very interesting, he's got a lot of stuff going on. You know he's very interesting, he's got a lot of stuff going on. You know, why are we not spending that due diligence looking into him? I'm trying to think of like reasons why they wouldn't be looking into him and I just can't think of anything. I mean, it seems pretty convincing to me. I just her case gets more and more complex every time I see an update.
Courtney:Her family was pretty dead set on saying that they just didn't think that she would run off to hurt herself, that they kind of figured she would leave and find some kind of foul play later on. But her sister also did. Her sister, julie, did say in 2024 that she had an eating disorder and was making poor decisions and they did know that as a family. That's the first I had seen of the eating disorder, but I haven't watched the documentary or read a book about it. Obviously you might have uncovered that in your own research disorder, but I haven't watched the documentary or read a book about it. Obviously you might have uncovered that in your own research. Did you uncover in your research that her sister kathleen suffered from alcoholism and had been discharged from rehab?
Courtney:on february 5th. Yes, her response is very interesting to that as well, and her supervisor at work, when she was at work and got the call, was like you need to see a counselor and she would not go if you watch the documentary it gets to interview kathleen.
Hannah:It's heart-wrenching because you can see the sister was like I was dealing with my own demons and I felt like I couldn't help more. Yeah, it's really sad that is super sad.
Courtney:I and I they have a whole section too that looks at like the last movements that you had listed out. And I do think it's interesting because they did note that she went to the nearby liquor store, purchased $40 worth of alcohol, box of wine they have Kahlua, but Kahlua and Bailey's are kind of the same thing and vodka, and traded in 79 bottles and cans for $3.99 in store credit. So if that's true, the cans on the floor could be that, because if you're talking 79 cans, I mean if a few of them roll out, you're not going to notice. Interesting, I don't know, hannah, I was hoping we were going to be able to like crack part of the code or come up with a different theory. There is so much to this case there is there's a lot there's absolutely there's so much.
Courtney:I'm really interested to see if the wanderers have theories about them, because obviously we talked about a lot of possibilities that obviously you've spent time thinking about, I've spent time thinking about, I know, on the original release. Just talked about her theories too, too, I'm really interested to see if anybody I know it's been 2023 when you release that so we're talking a year and a half probably, because I think it was like fall of 2023.
Courtney:But if anybody has any thoughts on this case, or information or things they've seen, share them with us. We're doing a little revamp on social media so you'll notice a little bit of a different presence. So we're using Facebook, we're using Instagram and then, if you prefer the anonymous route, always you can text us as well.
Hannah:Yes, text us, we love text.
Courtney:We love text, and if you do, we really can't see who you are. So you could play a total April Fool's joke on us know that it was you. That was a great episode, hannah. I'm going to be definitely thinking about Maura Murray for the foreseeable future now. Yeah, she's in my head and just my heart goes out to her family. I can't stress enough that in cases like these, a lot of people have thoughts and opinions, and none of those things mean that she deserved what happened, whether she was drinking or she wasn't, whether she had mental illness or she didn't, whether she made a poor choice or she didn't.
Courtney:Her life is still worth honoring and we have this whole episode composed with that at the heart of it. Absolutely Wow.
Hannah:Okay, well, thank you Courtney, thank you Hannah, and we will see you, wanderers, later. We'll see you later, wanderers, take care. Thanks for listening today. Wicked Wanderings is hosted by me, hannah, and co-hosted by me, courtney, and it's produced by Rob Fitzpatrick.
Hannah:Music by Sasha N. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to leave a rating and review and be sure to follow on all socials. You can find the links down in the show notes. If you're looking for some really cozy t-shirts or hoodies, head over to the merch store. Thank you for being a part of the Wicked Wanderings community. We appreciate every one of you.
